Indiana Receives an 'A+' for Small Business Friendliness

A 2017 Thumbtack survey found that Indiana was the 8th most friendly state for small businesses to launch, operate, and expand.

According to Thumbtack’s recently released Small Business Friendliness Survey, Indiana was graded an ‘A+’ on small businesses friendliness, which considers state policies’ impact on facilitating small businesses to launch and grow. For 2017, Thumbtack surveyed over 13,000 small business owners in the U.S., and graded all 50 states and 80 selected cities on their small business friendliness. Indiana ranked 8th out of the 50 states, behind Wyoming, Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Texas, and Utah.

Indiana received ‘A’ grades for the following:

Ease of starting a business

Health and safety regulations

Employment, labor and hiring regulations

Tax code

Indiana’s largest areas of improvement were in its training and networking programs, which received a ‘C+’ grade, and zoning, which received a ‘B-’ grade.

Indianapolis received a ‘B+’ grade, and was ranked 29th out of the 80 cities surveyed. Indianapolis needed to improve its employment, labor and hiring regulations, which received the grade of ‘D+,’ to be more accommodating to small business owners. Indianapolis also scored poorly, ‘C+,’ in zoning regulations.